January 2011

Israel's Yissum Research Development Company (the Technology Transfer Company of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and Korea's Vaxan Steel announced a new agreement to co-develop silver nanoparticles and silver-coated copper nanoparticles for conductive inks. These inks can be utilized in a variety of printing technologies, including inkjet printing, and can be used in applications such as OLEDs and RFID tags.

The new inks were invented by Professor Shlomo Magdassi, Dr. Alexander Kamyshny and Michael Grouchko from the Institute of Chemistry at the Hebrew University. Yissum granted Vaxan a license to commercialize the technology exclusively in Asia, excluding Israel and former Soviet Union countries, and will receive in return research fees and royalties from future sales. This is the first time a Korean company collaborates with an Israeli university.

Integrated Device Technology (IDT) developed the world's first single-layer multi-touch capacitive controller, called PureTouch. IDT explains that in normal multi-touch displays there are two or three layers of ITO - and they managed to use just a single layer in PureTouch. Having just one layer makes for cheaper touch screens, and also more efficient and bright ones. And it works for both LCD and AMOLED displays.

PureTouch display prototype

The only limitation of the new approach is that it only works well on small displays (up to 5" in size, and the maximum resolution is 1024x1024).

There are reports that Sony will unveil two professional OLED monitors at the Hollywood Post Alliance Tech Retreat (14-18 February in Palm Springs, California). This won't be Sony's 24.5" glasses-free 3D monitor unveiled at CES (which should also be available during 2011) as the two new monitors will not feature 3D.

Sony PVM-740

Sony already has some professional OLED monitors available - the latest is the PVM-740 (announced in April 2010) - that has a 7.4" (960x540) OLED panel.

There's an interesting article over at the LATimes about HP's flexible display research. HP has been showing flexible e-paper prototypes for quite a while, and they say they expect to deliver a prototype to the US army by year's end. Carl Taussig, director of advanced display research at HP Labs in Palo Alto, reveals that the company is also working on flexible OLEDs. Flexible E Ink is closer to commercialization - but it is monochrome and not suited for videos, and that's why HP is also looking at OLEDs.

HP's Flexible E Ink display

In October 2010, Universal Display (together with LG and L-3) announced that they delivered 8 flexible wrist-mounted OLED displays for the US Army. These are 4.3" QVGA full-color OLEDs, made on a amorphous-Silicon (a-Si) TFT, fabricated by LG
Display.

Samsung reported strong financial results, with over 80 million mobile devices shipped in the fourth quarter of 2010. In their financial report, Samsung also confirms they will ship a new phone that will be the Galaxy S successor during the first half of 2011, and this device will have a dual-core processor and a Super AMOLED Plus display. This will probably be the Galaxy S2, leaked a few weeks ago.

With regards to tablets, Samsung says that they have sold over 2 million Galaxy Tab devices in three months, and they plan to release a 'number of versions' in 2011. Will some of these use an OLED display?

We are happy to announce a new OLED-Info fan page at Facebook! We have added resources (such as photos and related pages) and will also start posting interesting stories and news directly to the page. This can also be a great place to socialize with other people interested in OLEDs where you can post and comment on stories, share links and start discussions.

So be a sport, hop over to the OLED-Info fan page, and click on the like button!

Digitimes reports that AUO is still in the process of installing equipment in their 3.5-Gen AMOLED production line, which is scheduled to start mass production in the second half of 2011 (which seems to be a delay as originaly AUO said production will start in 2Q 2011).

Yearly capacity will be 70 million displays a year (the plant can make 20K 680x880mm substrates a month).

Innovacene (a start-up founded in 2010 by a New Hampshire University professor) will collaborate with The New Hampshire Innovation Commercialization Center (NH-ICC) to commercialize its thin, organic and ultra-lightweight OLED coating technology. Innovacene and NI-ICC received a $100,000 grant from the New Hampshire Innovation Research Center (NHIRC).

TCZ (owned by Cymer) announced a 'volume order' for their TCZ-900B Crystallization System by a 'leading' Taiwanese flat panel display maker. The TCZ-900B, used for Gen-4 plants is used for volume production of small LCDs and OLEDs, but it seems from the press release that this system will be used for producing OLEDs. We do not know who the Taiwanese maker is.

The TCZ-900B is expected to "significantly" reduce the cost and complexity of the OLED manufacturing process". It uses TCZ's patented laser crystallization technology (announced in May 2010).

Euronews visited Philip's Aachen OLED center and produced a nice short video about Philips OLED Lighting research and commercial Lumiblade panels. This video will be aired on Euronews several times in the following week. It's a nice introduction to OLED Lighting technology and how OLED panels are made today:

The video features Kristin Knappstein, Philips' OLED business chief (we posted an interview with Kristin a few weeks ago) and Dr. Stefan Grabowsky, the OLED100.eu project manager (whom we interviewed in 2009) . You can also see the Mimosa interactive artwork and some nice shots from within Philips' labs.